In these last summer days my friends' (Dani e Laura's) thoughts and mine are still full of flowers and colors, as you can see from the ATC we shared at our last meeting. You certainly notice that I used the same stamp I put in my last post: what can I say... I love this Altenew set!

Today I like to show you how to make this classical card using only a bunch of materials. The beautiful sentiment by Romano Battaglia, Italian writer, inspired this card (it says "Count the flowers of your garden, never the falling leaves").

The first step is stamping the Altenew flower with the Versafine Vintage Sepia, then coloring the smaller petals with the Chameleon pen Fawn, infusing the brush nib for 4-5 seconds. This done, color the bigger petals in two steps: from the middle to the margin, infusing each time the brush nib for 9-10 seconds. Add shadows with pure color and fill the floral center with Warm Sunset. Add a white dot on each stamen with the gel pen. Cut out the flower leaving 1mm of white margin.

Stamp the leaf branch repeatedly with the Vintage Sepia ink pad, to create a background. Color each leaf in two steps with the Olive Green pen, infusing the brush nib for 9-10 seconds from the middle to the border. Add shadows with Cool Gray pen, infusing the bullet nib for 3-4 seconds many times along the leaves margins. Trim the background panel at 53/4" x 53/4".

My kids do not look forward to going back to school; me, on the other hands, I'm counting the minutes...

In the meantime, we want to be prepared. This year my son will go to the primary school too, so I created a board with two week schedules. The new Impronte d'Autore' stamps and coordinate dies were perfect for this project!

sabato 3 settembre 2016

Se avete voglia di sapere cosa ne penso io, mettetevi comodi, acchiappate una bibita o un caffè e continuate a leggere :)If you have ever wonder about what really are Chameleon pens and wanted to know if their cost is really worth the pen... even if you have any curiosity about this product... well, find a cozy place, grab a good cup of coffee, and go on reading :)

Oggi, che è trascorso più di un anno da quando ho iniziato ad usare i pennarelli Chameleon, e più di sei mesi da quando sono entrata a far parte del Design Team, posso rispondere con alcuni esempi ad alcune delle domande che spesso mi rivolgete durante i corsi o nelle fiere di settore.When, at the beginning of 2015, I was asked to test the Chameleon pens for the first time, I took my time and compared the results on different papers, with different ink bases, with or without embossing powders. After that, I was fascinated by the new blending system and the bright colors, and I bought a deluxe set for my birthday.More than a year has passed since that day, and more than six months since when I have entered the Chameleon Design Team; so, I have plenty of examples to sustain my answers to some of the questions you posted to me on this subject.

COME SI USANO QUESTI PENNARELLI? COSA HANNO DI DIVERSO DAGLI ALTRI?HOW CAN ONE USE THESE PENS? WHY ARE THEY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER ALCOHOL PENS?

In generale, come per ogni altro prodotto, ci vuole pratica. Tanta pratica, possibilmente seguendo i video tutorial sul sito Chameleon, anche per capire come va tenuto in mano il pennarello, come muovere la punta sulla carta, che inclinazione dare, quanto soffermarsi su un'area mentre si colora. Indipendentemente dalla tecnica di coloritura che si usa, si può conoscere bene le potenzialità dello strumento di lavoro solo con la pratica. Del resto, la coloritura stessa richiede tempo e, possibilmente, dev'essere un piacere, non motivo d'ansia!Of course, personal skills and inclinations can make things different from one to another. Personally, I felt immediately at ease with them; but, at the same time, getting the best results required lots of practice.In general, and this is true for every product, you need practice to master them; and it is much better if you practice by following the video tutorials on Chameleon site about keeping the pen during the coloring, about the nib inclination, about the time of coloring each area on the paper and other tips. Beside the coloring technique you are using, you discover the full power of each tool only by practicing with it. Coloring itself requires time to master and, if possible, it should be a pleasure, not a stress!

E a proposito delle punte, è vero che quella più grande perde in fretta la forma originale, ma questo non comporta una cattiva resa. Se siete pigri, come me, potete non cambiarla subito appena si rovina e vi assicuro che la coloritura non ne soffrirà. In ogni caso, le punte di ricambio costano davvero poco e si sostituiscono con facilità (nell'immagine qui sotto potete vedere lo stato attuale del mio pennarello Grape Purple, uno di quelli che uso di più).If you consider that with only one pen you can get the blending effects you would achieve with 5-6 different pens, I think they are worth it.Besides, you can keep each pen for a lifetime, because each part is replaceable: you can change all the nibs, you can refill both the toning medium and ink chamber (see the simple instructions on the Chameleon site). About the nib: even though the super soft brush degrades with time, this will not compromise the coloring effect. Take a look at the picture below, I'm still using the Purple Grape pen, even with the broken in (it is one of my favorite color :). Anyway, the brush nibs are inexpensive and easy to replace.

HO GIA' PENNARELLI DI ALTRE MARCHE, POSSO USARLI ASSIEME A QUESTI?I HAVE SOME ALCOHOL PENS ALREADY, CAN I USE THEM TOGETHER WITH CHAMELEON PENS?

Potete usare entrambi: sono perfettamente compatibili e mescolabili tra loro.You can use other brand alcohol pens with the Chameleon pens: they are perfectly compatible and mixable.

MI E' CAPITATO DI ACQUISTARE UNA CONFEZIONE NUOVA DI PENNARELLI E TROVARNE ALCUNI CHE NON SFUMANO, PERCHE'?BUYING ONE BRAND NEW SET, I FOUND SOME PENS THAT DO NOT BLEND: WHY IS IT SO?

This could mean that the toning medium chamber is empty. Sometimes stocking the pens in hot places makes the alcohol to evaporate (good to keep it into your mind when comes to you to stock your precious pens!). Refilling the mixing chamber is usually the right solution to this issue. To avoid this inconvenient, though, new models come with a second cap around the nib of the toning medium.Anyway, if you need to use a color and you discover that the toning medium is dry, you can take the mixing chamber from another pen: while the color tone chamber changes from pen to pen, the mixing chamber is always the same.

HO NOTATO CHE IL COLORE CONTRASSEGNATO SUL TAPPO QUALCHE VOLTA E' DIVERSO DAL COLORE REALE: COME FACCIO A SAPERE SE E' FEDELE?I NOTICE THAT SOMETIMES THE COLOR ON THE CAP IS DIFFERENT FROM THE COLOR OF THE PEN: HOW CAN I KNOW WHICH IS THE REAL TONE?

Parlando esclusivamente del set originale da 22 pezzi, i casi di colori diversi da quelli contrassegnati sono pochi, ma ci sono: l'ho notato per il Fawn (più rosa di quello indicato sul tappo) e per il Seville Orange e il Bubble Pink (entrambi più flash). Dato che questo è un problema che riguarda non solo i Chameleon ma anche altre marche e altri tipi di prodotti, il mio consiglio è quello di creare una palette di riferimento da tenere sempre sott'occhio quando si colora: in questo caso potrete scegliere sempre la tonalità più adatta al lavoro che dovete fare. E' utilissimo anche per le matite, gli acquerelli, gli acrilici...As far as the first deluxe set of 22 pens is concerned, I must say that there are a few differences: Fawn is pinker than what is shown on the cap, and Seville Orange and Bubble pink are brighter. Nothing new under the sun: this happens with several brands. My advise is to make a reference palette of color. I do it for each brand I use so that I can pick up the right tone for each of my projects. It's very useful also with pencils, watercolors, acrylic colors...

Come potete notare, lo Staz-On, che è a base solvente, sbava (anche se meno di quello che avrei pensato).Any fast dry ink pad but not solvent or alcohol inks. The more commons are Memento and Versafine. I took a test with all my black ink pads (you can see the results below). The one I prefer is the last one, with Versafine and clear embossing powder: the print is brighter and the embossed borders help coloring and avoid streaks. As you can see, Staz-On is not good, because it is a solvent base ink (I was expecting a worst result, to be honest...).

CON QUESTI PENNARELLI POSSO AVERE GLI STESSI EFFETTI DEI PENNARELLI DI ALTRE MARCHE?CAN I ACHIEVE THE SAME RESULTS I HAVE WITH OTHER BRANDS USING CHAMELEON PENS?

Of course you can. You can blend a single color, two or more. You can fill an area with simple blending, feathered strokes or flicked strokes; you can color images with black borders or you can choose the no-line coloring technique. You can use these pens on paper, card stock or vellum and chose the style you prefer.You can see some examples below (click onto the subtitles to read the original posts).

Può sembrarvi una domanda banale, ma vi assicuro che ho sentito pronunciarli nei modi più fantasiosi! Per rispondervi, basta che pensiate alla canzone "Karma Chameleon" dei Culture Club. E se siete così giovani da non avere idea di che cosa stia parlando, guardatevi il video di questa canzone ^_*There are no stupid questions, especially not this one: I assure you that I have heard people calling them in many different ways! The right answer, I think, lies in the famous song by The Culture Club: "Karma Chameleon". Sing it and you'll know the answer. And if you are too young to have a any clue about what I'm talking about, go and take a look at the video ^_*

Tirando le somme, sono contentissima della resa di questo prodotto. Probabilmente, senza i Chameleon, non mi sarei mai avvicinata al mondo dei pennarelli ad alcool, perché mi spaventava l'idea di dover investire parecchio denaro per mettere assieme un set di base da usare per i miei progetti di stamping. Fino a qualche mese fa vi avrei detto che se avessi dovuto trovare un difetto, sarebbe stato il numero ridotto di colori, ma i Chameleon mi hanno anticipata con tutti i nuovi set (che non vedo l'ora di provare)!In the end, I'm very happy of this product. It is more likely that, without Chameleon pens, I would have never got so close to the alcohol pens world: the amount of the investment needed to get a base set of pens for my stamping projects scared me.If you have asked me to point to a flaw in the Chameleon project even a few months ago, I would have talked about the limited number of colors available. This changed too, though, when Chameleon produced 30 brand new colors and put them into the market! Now... I am just looking forward to testing them all!
P.S.: Questo è un post sponsorizzato, ma le opinioni espresse sono tutte mie!P.S.: This is a sponsored post, but all opinions expressed are mine!